Who are you looking at?
by Pineapple Chiffon Cake
Summary: set directly after the last chapterbefore the epilogue of DH MAJOR SPOILERS for DH Harry's won, the world is safe, but Harry wants to know: Is Lily the only reason Snape suffered to help Harry? There's only one way to know for sure. HS slash.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All the characters are J.K. Rowling's. ((but now that she's done with them, maybe I can-- OW! BAD TOUCH BAD TOUCH!!!!!!!!)) The idea for this fanfic was mine though. miiiine.

Warning: Shounen Ai/Yaoi (but not yet >) between Harry and Severus, the kings of angst OO. You don't like, you don't read. It's that simple.

Harry lay in his four-poster bed, listening to the deep breathing of the others who shared the boys' dormitory in Griffindor Tower. The quiet lull of sleepers was broken occasionally by the whimpers of those who suffered nightmares. Harry briefly envied even those fighting night-ghasts—at least they were asleep and not kept awake by adrenaline and exhilaration and lingering terror, nor jumping at every suspicious noise like a paranoid cat.

Although his body seemed perfectly happy—he had finally taken a good, hot bath in the Prefect's tub, courtesy of all the Griffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff Prefects who had simply _insisted_, and he felt clean and comfortable. His stomach was full, thanks to Kreacher who had brought him not one, but _three_ excellent sandwiches. He had sustained no lasting injuries, the scar didn't hurt any more, and for the first time in _weeks_ he had a chance to just lie down, rest up, and do nothing in the comforts of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the first real home he had known. He had even turned down Mrs. Weasley's offer—more like demand, really—that he go back to the Burrow to recuperate. Harry argued that after laying down his life to protect Hogwarts and its inhabitants, the least he could ask for was a night in the place he had almost died to save. Molly Weasley had, predictably, burst into tears and hugged Harry and called him all sorts of good things.

Yes, Harry's body was more than ready for its overdue rest. But his mind was a mess. He couldn't sort things out. Suddenly, there was no more connection with Voldemort's mind, if only because there _was_ no more Voldemort's mind to be connected to. Harry's thoughts were his alone, and there were no twisted plots, no inhuman fury or pain intruding on his train of thought, which at the moment was a string of scrambled multicolored lights. He wasn't sure what he felt anymore. Before he had won—that gave him a jolt of pleasure; he had really done it, defeated Voldemort!—it had been only natural to feel lost, angry, desperate, persistent… Hero-like thoughts were easy to come by when one found oneself in a position that demanded heroics. But now—was Harry still a hero? He had done what was asked of him, vanquished evil and restored peace. Was he just another wizard now?

And what did it matter? Harry was perfectly happy to trade his fame for the safety of those dear to him. Misery knotted at his throat as he thought again of Fred, Tonks, and Lupin. Hedwig, and Dobby, and Dumbledore, and Sirius and… even his _parents'_ death gave him a pang of remorse, never mind that he had grown up knowing they were gone forever, never mind that he knew that he could only see them through enchanted photographs and mirrors, through others' memories, and through ghostly representations.

He wished for one desperately bitter moment that he had not dropped the ring with that precious Resurrection Stone set into the metal circle. He wanted to see them all again, all those who had given their lives fighting for a better world, fighting for _his_ world, _his_ generation. With a start, he realized that the Marauders were all gone now. Padfoot, Prongs, Moony, and Wormtail… all dead. Despite the fact that so many friends still survived—lived, breathed, and celebrated victory all around him—Harry could not help but feel he had failed. Again came the longing to hold the Resurrection Stone, to turn it over thrice in his hands, so he could look upon the visages of those who were so dear to him. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what they looked like the last time he saw them alive—not shades of what they used to be, but as living, breathing people. His parents could not be helped, he could only see them as he had ever seen them in the photographs he had seen of them. Sirius, he saw the jubilant look, heard the exhilarated laugh before sudden death. Lupin, he remembered most as the joyous man who had burst into Bill's house to announce the birth of his son. Fred, Harry saw setting off fireworks and riding his contraband broomstick over Umbridge's head. Tonks, he remembered with a sudden smile her impression of a pig's snout. Face by face, frame by frame, he reviewed them all with relish and sadness, until an image sprang unbidden to his mind.

"_Look…at…me…"_ the image of a dying Snape consumed his mind, and a final clarification struck Harry. _He wanted to see my mother's eyes_, Harry realized with a start. _He wanted to believe… that she was there with him._ Although he knew that he could stop the flow of memories from hitting him—they were Snape's memories after all, and after gaining the control it took to block Voldemort from his thoughts, how hard could it be to staunch the memories of his former Occlumency tutor?—Harry had not the will to. He wanted to see again, to review Snape's most vulnerable moments, those instants when it was revealed that the dark, greasy-haired man did actually possess a heart, and a loyal, loving one at that.

Harry thought of the silver doe, and what it meant. For one startlingly bleak moment, he felt envy towards Lily, his own mother. She had taken all of Snape's tender moments, all of Snape's desperation and love, and left Harry with the embittered man who had given Harry more detentions than were due, and more embarrassments than were called for. Harry had never seen Snape happy, not for himself. Snape had been happy around Lily. _"Best friends,"_ Snape had called them. Harry owed, in no small part, his survival to Severus Snape, and all he had to show for it was his own collection of bitter experiences with the man. The more Harry knew about Severus's past, the more he wished he could have helped him somehow.

_I could've taken away that pain_, he thought sullenly. _I could've… I could've made him happy, too. Mum just made him sad. Did she know how much he loved her?_ It must have hurt, Harry realized, to be made to stay so close to the man who had murdered the one you loved. Severus must have been a great actor, to win the trust of the man who had killed Lily. _In the end, he died for her_, Harry thought. _Not even so much for me, or for the wizarding world or whatever. Severus Snape died for Lily Evans._

It didn't sit well in his mind. Much as he loved his mother, a jealous, pouting voice rose within him. _Why not me?_ He could not stop his disappointed fuming. _Am I not good enough to die for?_ Almost immediately he regretted the thought, ashamed as though he had spoken the words aloud. Jealous of his own poor mother, whose love had protected him from death itself! But he could not quell the thoughts. He was exhausted and he wanted for once to think things through, to see where his thoughts would take him. He probed that sore spot again. _Why did he hate me so much? Were my eyes the only reason he protected me for Mum? What if I had had my dad's eyes? Was it all for her? Severus never really cared for Harry Potter, just his mother? All that stuff he did, all of the lying, the following, the pretending, the killing… all of it was for Mum? If I had been someone else's son, he wouldn't have protected me and helped me to his last?_ The thoughts stung like wasps and he couldn't stop them from swarming his mind.

It was unfathomable, yet so close to what Harry suspected was the truth that it hurt. He had only felt pride before when people had told him that he was the spitting image of James. Some shame, perhaps, invaded that pride when he discovered that James was as cruel as he was popular. But he had never been compared much to Lily. He had her eyes; that was all was ever said of the resemblance between mother and son. But that seemed to him now a dreadful handicap and a terrible gift. He had never expected this bubbling jealousy and… and _disappointment_ to swamp him as it did now. Harry supposed that it was because, even after all of Snape's misdeeds against him and the terrible things that the professor had done, under his own volition or not, Harry had believed, deep down inside, that some part of Severus cared about his least favorite pupil. After all, was Harry not the Boy Who Lived? Surely, Snape would at least preserve him for that!

Or had Snape done it all for Lily? Lily, who was dead, who had been dead for nearly eighteen years? The silver doe itself was proof enough that she was never far from Severus's mind. Harry did not find it hard to believe that Lily was the only thing that could make Severus happy.

But there were still so many questions. Questions that needed answers straight from the source. Of course, Snape himself had said _"For __**him**__?"_ in that disbelieving voice that had sent daggers through Harry's heart, only temporarily overshadowed by the cold knowledge that Harry would have to die in order to kill Voldemort. But now Voldemort was dead, and Harry alive, and Severus… Harry suddenly knew that, despite wanting badly to see his departed loved ones, it was for the purpose of seeing Snape again that he wanted the Resurrection Stone again. He wanted to look into the visage of the man who had spent his entire life protecting the only one who had ever made him happy. He wanted to ask Snape the burning question. There was no other way. He needed to know.

Harry gripped the Invisibility Cloak stowed under his pillow, pushed aside the hangings of his four-poster bed, and navigated through the demolished halls of Hogwarts School, passing by the part of the Commons Room being used as an impromptu infirmary while St. Mungo's was full of patients. The Weasleys were still wide awake, helping out where they could. It made Harry warm again to see his friends who had survived the war—they were veterans now, he thought with a small smile underneath his Cloak, they would for certain be in the latest editions of history texts. He wanted to grasp everyone by the hand, make sure that they were all right. Hermione, Ron, Ginny—the thought of Ginny, though bright, still passed like a cloud through his mind. He felt guilty for being so lucky. It had been terrible those years when no one believed him, or thought he was a freak. Like when he first learned about Parseltongue, for instance, or when everyone was told that he and Dumbledore were liars. But he had always had Ron and Hermione and so many other friends in unexpected places who had supported him. Snape had only ever had Lily.

Harry felt guilty about his motives. So what if his suspicions were true? Could he hold a grudge against Snape, the bravest Slytherin—no, _man_—he had ever known, simply for defending his love's son?

_No_, thought Harry fiercely. _I can't begrudge Snape that._ His hand tightened on his wand. _But I need to know. I just do._ With that thought, he slipped through a door and out of the castle. He headed towards the Forbidden Forest. His common sense screamed at him that he was being stupid—how could he ever find it again in _there_? Besides, hadn't he promised Dumbledore that he wouldn't go looking for it? He wavered for hardly a moment, and then strengthened his resolve. It didn't matter; it was the only way. He had to find the Resurrection Stone again, and he _would_.

--

AN: Well. I'm not giving away anything, but cool things are about to happen! As stated in the summary, this is most definitely a follow-up of the last chapter of Deathly Hallows (before the epilogue) and MOST DEFINITELY Harry/Severus. I just finished the book yesterday and fweeeee! I am excited! Because I woke up at some unholy hour last night/this morning and was struck by the idea for this fanfic. Please leave some feedback! Reviews keep the gerbils going! I'm off to vacation for a bit, but I'll update when I get back.

Now! Zap that review button!


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is, regrettably, not mine. Severus Snape belongs to Harry, and by that same token, belongs to JKR, who is a wonderful author but should really enjoy a few more slash fanfics. Good inspiration, those are.

--

Severus Snape was not especially squeamish in matters concerning death. Even in his youth, he was a great reader of the macabre. He was a devout fan of poets such as Grant Banebrook and Edgar Allen Poe, the former of whom liked to compose haunting tunes to his odes to love and death and the potions which enabled each and the latter of whom Severus was sure was the one crowning glory of Muggle-kind.

"Oh, Poe," he used to sigh in the privacy of the Room of Requirement, which he had discovered his third year at Hogwarts and which had shaped itself into a comfortable library of depressing texts, "if only you hadn't died so young (and more than a century ago), oh the things we could have _said_ to each other." He meant, of course, that they could have compared notes. Their morbidly dark souls, Severus felt, shared a love that was, at best, unrequited and, he amended a few years later, bitterly watching a funeral procession near Godric's Hollow, at worst, denied by separation of death.

He had, naturally, considered "offing himself" quite a few times, in his childhood and then a few more times in his early adulthood. Mostly he changed his mind before he could carry out his plan of action, sometimes because of what he labeled as cowardice (and what Dumbledore called a valiant will to keep on chugging) and sometimes because Lily had smiled at him or done something nice for him immediately after he alighted on the decision to kill himself. Another time, he had just finished _The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet_ (oh, Shakespeare! The things we could have _said_ to each other if only you didn't write those dreadful _comedies!_) and had been convinced that an infusion of asphodel and wormwood () would be the solution to all of his problems. Lily would think him dead and then, in a tragic display of devotion, she would admit that she had always loved him and would proceed to kill herself to join him in death. He would then wake up at _exactly_ the right time and stop her and they would sob their way to a happy ending.

_That_ plan had been thwarted. Severus was very adamant about never revealing _how_.

A worse potion mishap occurred two years later, when something went terribly wrong with one experiment and Severus tried to quell his disappointment by making another, near fail-proof attempt on his life. Details are withheld for his own benefit, but it should be suffice to say that he had added too much of something and too little of the other, and instead of his blood boiling him to death from within, he suffered a terrible affliction of greasy hair for the rest of his life.

At least, the rest of his life _as he understood it._

As far as Severus Snape was concerned. He was dead, just like a multitude of his Death Eater friends, just like a good quantity of his Order of the Phoenix affiliates, just like Albus Dumbledore, and James Potter, and Lily (Evans) Potter (just as well, he thought, that she married Potter—Lily Snape didn't really have much of a ring to it, and all his father's fault). He was dead, just like Harry Potter would need to be in able to ensure that the Dark Lord would _stay_ dead if and when someone killed him. Perhaps that someone would be Harry who would, against James' own inclinations, use his brains (or, more likely, that Muggle-born girl's) and find some spell that would kill You-Know-Who the same instance that he himself was killed.

Severus, while comfortable on the whole with the fact that dying was what happened to people who had the nerve to live, found that he had a few qualms about the Potter boy dying. After all, hadn't he dedicated most of his adult life to protecting that stupid offspring of the woman he loved and the man he loathed (and little Potter had _such_ a way of getting himself into great deals of trouble)? And hadn't he, Severus Snape, the Half-Blood Prince, been taken for a villain at _every turn!_ After all the sacrifices, all the lies and the spying and the killing people he didn't want to kill (except Dumbledore—that dodgy old man had _tricked_ him), and being confronted with Lily's eyes in James' face _every bleeding day_ that Potter attended Hogwarts, after all that buggerall, what was he known for? For being _Voldemort's right-hand man._

Severus felt rather cheated at that. He dearly hoped that Potter, that bumbling oaf of a boy, wouldn't spill those precious memories and, in essence, lose all proof of Severus' innocence. But, knowing how Lily's son managed to botch things up at the worst of times, Severus figured that he would be put down in history books as the "wickedest wizard that ever did live—next to Voldemort". He wondered what they would say about his childhood, and whether they would attribute his terrible deeds to his abusive father or his unresponsive mother.

"At the end of the day," he murmured to himself, "one must wonder: _Was it worth it?_" He looked around at the cloudy whiteness that surrounded him on every side. He discovered that he was naked and that his hair was, for the first time in many years, not greasy and rather clean. Severus felt let down. He had been hoping that death would be a more exciting affair, or at least an affair in which he would be allowed some clothes. As this thought passed through his mind, a set of clothes appeared in front of him. It was his mother's old blouse and a pair of hideous shorts. Severus scowled at them. They dissolved rather sheepishly and a set of black robes presented themselves in their place. Severus put these on and wandered around the white nothingness.

"Where _is_ everyone?" he said aloud. Where were all the others who had died? Surely every soul wasn't given its own dimension of blankness. Surely he would be able to see _other_ dead people now. Surely he would be able to see Lily. He really wanted to, even though they hadn't been on speaking terms when they last saw each other. There were many things that he wanted to say to her. It occurred to him that he had never even told Lily that he loved her, although how telling her was going to make anything better was beyond him.

The whiteness was taking form now. He recognized it immediately as the playground where he had first met Lily (and told her she was a witch—subtlety was an art he had not yet learned at the age of eleven). The swings swayed back and forth, the creaking chains something out of bittersweet memories. And then, as though she had always been there, was Lily, seated on a swing, looking hardly a day over twenty, and she was smiling at him.

"Hello, Severus," she said.

"Lily," he breathed.

--

Harry stumbled along in the dark, his lighted wand held in front of him, his Invisibility Cloak shed for sake of better mobility. He did his best to mute the nagging voices inside his brain that were telling him that he was doing something stupid again and kept moving forward. He didn't care that the Forbidden Forest was a decidedly huge place to go looking for a ring in, or that he was utterly lost in the dark. He was going to find that Resurrection Stone and he was going to ask his questions, get some answers, and live happily ever after. He _would_. Harry had already decided that, whatever Snape said, he wouldn't care too much. He just wanted to know, was all. It wasn't like he would throw a fit or anything if Snape said, "Yes, you stupid Potter boy, calling me back from the dead to have a quick chat. I did it all for your mum. I don't care one whit about you and if your mother hadn't been Lily, I would've as soon let the Dark Lord curse you into oblivion."

He wouldn't. He was sure of it. Harry was capable of dealing with the truth. And the truth was—well. Harry didn't care that Snape had blatantly _told_ Dumbledore that he hadn't done any of it for Harry. It wasn't the same as Snape telling Harry. This made perfect sense. Harry was very good at making the voices in his head shut up. Occlumency, it turned out, was a good skill to have.

Of course! He thought gaily. Snape used Occlumency to fool Dumbledore into believing that Harry was of no consequence to him. It simply wouldn't do, after all, if Snape let anyone think that he cared about the Potter boy.

Harry sighed. Who was he kidding? He looked around and found that he had stumbled across a trail of some sort. Hundreds of hoof-prints had at some point crashed between thick trees and scraggly underbrush to head towards the castle. Harry intensified the glow of his wand and saw that, much higher above than any centaur's head could reach, branches had been snapped and leaves disturbed.

"This must've been the way Hagrid and the Death Eaters went when they were taking my body to Hogwarts," Harry muttered to himself. It stood to reason, then, that by backtracking Hagrid's trail, he would eventually find the clearing where he had dropped the ring. Harry smiled grimly. _Told you so_, he shot at the voices in his head.

--

"Thank you, Severus," said Lily. They were now both seated on the swings, although Severus thought it a mild affront on his dignity, since they were swings made for much smaller bodies and his legs were getting cramped. "I know you've gone through a lot to protect Harry. I'm very grateful." She turned and smiled at Severus again. "I'm sure it was difficult."

Severus shrugged it off. "It was the least I could do," he mumbled. What he really wanted to say, though, was 'What happened to your eyes? Why have they… changed?' The color was the same, but the light was slightly off. To his horror and disappointment, the eyes of the woman he had all but worshipped seemed lacking. Was this what death was? Did it slowly fade these details away? He almost felt cheated.

"I've been watching, you know," said Lily. "It's something the dead can do. We can watch the progression of our loved ones." Severus rose an eyebrow. Lily scowled, and Severus was relieved that that, at least, was the same as he had remembered it. "Severus, you were my best friend. Of course I'd watch over you."

"Of course," Severus repeated. He tried to smile. "I hope you've forgiven me, after all this time. I was stupid, I shouldn't have done it."

"Oh, don't worry about that," said Lily. "Look how well it turned out! If it hadn't been for you, Harry would have never been—"

"I was talking about… you know. The name-calling," interrupted Severus. Lily colored a little. "But I shouldn't have done either. It was wrong."

"Worse things have happened to me than being called a Mudblood," she said. "I'd almost forgotten, really."

"I never did," said Severus. The irony hurt. She had forgotten why their friendship ended their fifth year?

Lily reached over and touched his arm. "I didn't mean it like that," she said. "I just meant… I forgave you a long time ago. I invited you to the wedding, you know."

"I had prior engagements that day," Severus lied easily.

"I'm sure you did," said Lily. There was a pause. "Sev, there's something I've been sent to tell you." He looked at her expectantly. "You of all people should know that the dead usually stay dead."

"Except for Voldemort," amended Severus. Lily nodded.

"Well, yes. There's _that_, and then there's…Well. I suppose you'd better see for yourself." She waved a hand and a swirl of white cloudiness opened into a window. Through it, Severus could see Voldemort and a throng of Death Eaters in a clearing. And then he heard a voice that gave his chest a painful squeeze. The air rippled and Harry shed his cloak.

"Stupid boy!" he burst out. "Put it back on! Get out of there! What do you think you're--?" He moved towards the window, but Lily drew him back firmly.

"Don't be silly," she said, although she had tears in her eyes. "This happened a few hours ago… not too long after you died, actually. There's nothing you can do now to change what my son did for the wizarding world."

Severus sat down again on the uncomfortable swing, watching in horror as the Potter boy did not even draw his wand in defense. From the angle the confrontation was shown, Severus had a perfect view of Harry's eyes. Again, his chest constricted and he found it hard to breathe. At once, he understood that Lily's eyes were not lacking, only that they were not Harry's.

"_Avada Kedavra."_

It took Severus a moment to realize that the high, strangled cry came from himself, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle it.

"Why are you showing me this?" he whispered harshly to Lily once he had recovered. Lily only gave his arm another squeeze as tears rolled down her face. He turned back to the window and saw Voldemort collapse shortly after Harry. Awful minutes went by, and then the Dark Lord revived himself and Narcissa announced that Harry Potter was dead.

If possible, Severus paled a few shades more.

He watched the whole terrible procession to Hogwarts, and heard the screams, saw the acts of defiance, and the whole time he heard himself muttering "it can't be, it can't be" over and over to himself like a mantra. And then, like a miracle, he saw Harry slip out of Hagrid's arms, fully animated, and conceal himself under the Invisibility Cloak. He blinked. As pandemonium took over Hogwarts, Severus turned to Lily.

"How is this possible?" he asked.

Lily smiled and wiped her eyes. "I'm not sure, myself. Dumbledore tried explaining it to us, but you know me. I'm more of a Charms girl." Her expression suddenly grew serious. "Severus, when Harry died, he was given a choice to either proceed onto the afterlife or to return to the world of the living to duel Lord Voldemort. I think it's clear which path he chose." Something seemed to trouble her. "By some rare turn of fortune, or possibly as a reward granted to you by the powers that be for your selflessness… you are being offered the same choice."

Severus Snape was, for the first time in a long while, struck dumb.

"Excuse me?" he finally managed.

"You can choose between staying dead and returning to life." Lily frowned. "Really, Sev, I thought you'd be smart enough to understand _that_."

"But why?" said Severus, completely bewildered. "Why do I get a choice? What about you? You can't tell me that giving your life to protect a child isn't a selfless act deserving of a second chance at life."

"I told you," said Lily. "It's a rare chance. And don't belittle your efforts, Sev. You've done as much for Harry as I ever have. And you suffered for it as well." A thoughtful look crossed her face. "If you want the magical reason for it though, Dumbledore said that Harry's blood somehow mixed with yours, like _that's_ any kind of explanation." When Severus didn't say anything, she looked down. "You know, you almost make it seem like a hard decision."

Severus didn't reply to that, either. He didn't have to.

He seemed to be thinking it through. When he first arrived here, at this strange crossroads, he had assumed that there would be no going back which mattered very little because he didn't want to. But there was, and he did. This surprised Severus. He had thought his duties finished, his promises fulfilled.

"I thought I'd failed you, at first," he admitted.

"You didn't," Lily assured him hurriedly. "You never have. You couldn't."

"This happened hours ago, you say?" he asked. Lily nodded. The window was showing Harry and Voldemort pacing a circle as they faced each other. "Tell me, does Harry survive?"

"He wins," said Lily softly, proudly.

Severus nodded, and stood up with a little difficulty because the swing was so low.

"I suppose I had better get going, then." Severus helped Lily up. She looked up at him, the question in her eyes. Lily's eyes. It surprised him that they were not the last things he had seen when he was last alive. "I'm going back, Lily," he told her. "It seems I have some things to take care of, my reputation not the least of them."

"Dumbledore said your body will be weak," said Lily. "You must be careful and find a healer as soon as possible." Severus nodded. Whiteness collected around them again. The playground faded, and with it the sound of creaking swings.

"Lily," said Severus, sounding a little forced. He had to say it. He had to say it _now_. "I… You know, I've always been awfully fond…" His awkward boyish confession was cut off by a brief hug. Lily let him go and shook her head a little sadly.

"I took so much from you, Sev. I hope you can get it all back, I really do." She gave his hand a tight squeeze, then dissolved into the mist.

The last thing Severus heard before he returned fully to his own drained, weakened, aching body was Harry's voice declaring with utmost certainty,

"_Severus Snape wasn't yours."_

"Good boy, Potter," he wheezed, fighting to sit up. His clothes were caked in dried blood. He felt the snake bite on his neck. It hurt like hell. Despite the pain, he smiled at the gloomy shack around him. "Good boy."

--

The Resurrection Stone was in Harry's hands. The shades of his father, Sirius, and Lupin stood before him, looking at one another uncertainly.

"Where _is_ he?" demanded Harry, his voice nearly hysterical. "_Where_ is Severus Snape?"

--

In the first book, Professor Snape asks Harry what an infusion of wormwood and asphodel will give him. When Harry doesn't know the answer, Snape reveals that it produces the Draught of Living Death, which is awfully similar to the stuff that the apothecary gives Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's great tragedy.

--

AN: And so the cool things begin to happen D Thank you so much for the reviews!

I apologize for the run-on sentences and all the confusing things. I promise that the latter will make sense in further chapters.

I am currently on a Snape-worshipping binge right now, so don't mind me if I 'ship him through sixteen mattresses and one very confused bespectacled boy. I plotted most of this story out on the long road-trip to New York and back, so hopefully most of it will be organized. Let me know what you think!

_Accio Review!_

Okay. That was corny. I admit it.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is not mine. Severus Snape is also not mine. This makes me very sad. I demand compensation.

All other mentioned characters are not mine, but I don't really care too much for those.

--

James Potter did not think himself a bad father. He had done all he could to be a good daddy while he was still alive and had been as good a spectator after his death at Voldemort's hands. He had sat alongside Lily and both had watched over Harry as their little son grew up.

"Your sister's barking mad, she is," said James on Harry's eleventh birthday, watching a nervous Petunia allow Vernon to drive the family halfway across England, trying to dodge the wizarding world's attempts to contact Harry. "She and her husband both. What the bloody hell do they think they're doing?"

Many a time, James wished he could help his son. He berated Hermione for not being smart enough, Ronald for not being brave enough, and occasionally Dumbledore for not doing _more_. But _Snape_! James had disliked Snivellus ever since he had first laid eyes on the pale greasy boy on the Hogwarts Express and had only refrained from letting him walk in on a transformed Remus their sixth year because he knew it would have upset Lily. Severus Snape, regardless of where his loyalties lay and what sacrifices he had made, would always be at the top of James' list of people the world could do without. And after the way the Potions master had treated Harry, James would have expected his son to have similar feelings.

"Well done, Harry!" James had burst out the minute his shade appeared in the clearing. Harry, looking rather disheveled, leaned against a tree, ring in hands. "Really, really _brilliant_ of you! _My_ son!" he exclaimed to Remus and Sirius, who both beamed at the bespectacled boy. "Defeated the Dark Lord!" It took James a while to realize that Harry wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. Rather, the boy was peering around him, as if expecting another shade to emerge at any moment. James' brow furrowed, then he remembered. "Oh, don't worry about your mum. Albus asked her to do something for him. She'll be along in a bit, I expect."

Harry didn't seem to hear him. Instead, he turned the ring in his hands again, looking perplexed. "Snape," James heard the boy mutter. "Where's Snape?"

"Er," said James. "I think he's dead."

"I _know_," hissed Harry. "So where is he?"

James exchanged an uneasy look with his friends. "Er," he said.

"I would assume that Snivellus has gone where all bad boys go," said Sirius wickedly. "Don't trouble your conscience any with that one, Harry. He's done his share of bad deeds."

"No," said Harry fiercely. "He was on our side." His tone suggested that it was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention, which Sirius wasn't. Harry, meanwhile, was peering closely at the ring under the light cast by his wand. The Resurrection Stone had a crack from when Dumbledore destroyed the Horcrux. Did being smote with the Sword of Gryffindor damage the stone's properties? Maybe Harry needed to concentrate harder. He tried, but nothing happened. His morale was falling quickly. Why wasn't it working? He was _sure_ Snape was dead—he'd seen it happen! And if the Potions professor was dead, then the Resurrection Stone would be able to call his soul back so Harry could talk to it.

Harry _urgently needed _to talk to Snape. It had become a dire necessity over the past few hours, during which he had chanted "must see Snape, must see Snape, must see Snape" over and over again until it had ingrained itself in his mind. He wasn't even sure _why_ he wanted to talk to Snape anymore. He just had to. There was something important that he needed to ask Snape, and Harry couldn't remember what it was that he needed to say, but he would say it.

Truth be told, Harry was too tired to even remember where he was at the moment. The path in his mind was the only thing that was clear: find the ring, talk to Snape, get some answers (answers to what? Harry couldn't remember that either). He had found the ring after some fumbling in the dark—_lumos_ was hardly practical in the Forbidden Forest; it cast more shadows than light, really—but there was no Snape.

_No Snape, no Snape, no Snape—where is he? Need to talk to him, need to ask him…stuff…important stuff…where…???_

James was very alarmed when his only son collapsed by the tree, reduced to babbling about his Potions master and how it was so _important_ that Snape be here.

"What… the hell?" he said weakly to Sirius, who had no better idea than he. Remus, on the other hand, looked torn between worry and amusement.

_Oh, Severus_, thought the werewolf, _what have you done?_

"Where _is_ he?" wailed Harry.

And the night went downhill from there.

As the first streaks of dawn encroached upon the sleeping sky, the Marauders returned to their own separate world, leaving behind a sleeping Harry. The boy had worked himself into a fit and then, finally exhausted from yelling at no one in particular and punching enough trees to make his knuckles bloody, he had fallen asleep at the foot of a tree. Harry now woke up to find his glasses askew and the ring glistening several feet from him where he had dropped it in his sleep. He picked it up with sore hands and examined it under the light of the new dawn.

"Snape?" he said hopefully, turning it three times in his hand. He looked expectantly around the clearing. No one came. Maybe he needed to be more specific. He swallowed hard. He hadn't had to _think_ about it this much when he called for his parents and Remus and Sirius! "I want to see Severus Snape," he said in a voice that trembled. "Please," he added as an afterthought. He wanted to see the Potions professor, the one who had done so much for him, even if it had really been for his mother, wanted it so badly it hurt. But Severus Snape failed to appear in the clearing. Harry's heart seemed to drop down an endless gorge. He had come out here for nothing.

"Maybe Sirius was right," Harry said aloud to himself. "Maybe Snape got punished for what he did when he was alive." But _that_ wasn't right. Snape had done so much to help Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. He had saved Harry countless times! Harry suddenly alighted on a new idea. Perhaps the Resurrection Stone only worked when the bodies of the deceased were buried? It made as much sense as any other explanation he could come up with.

It was decided, then. Harry would find Snape's body and give it a proper burial. It was only right, Harry thought. It was only proper to pay respects to a man who had sacrificed everything for the greater good. But deeper in his mind, the truth behind his motivation remained unacknowledged—Harry clung to every last shred of hope that he would still somehow be able to communicate with Severus Snape.

By the time Harry got past the Whomping Willow and crawled through the tiny passageway to collapse, panting to the floor, morning had officially begun. He straightened, frowned, and looked around, feeling utterly lost. Snape's body was nowhere to be seen. Had Death Eaters taken it, or had Aurors been here to search for threats? Tears of frustration prickled behind his eyes. Why wasn't _anything_ going right? Instead of answers, all that Harry had achieved were more questions. Why wasn't the Resurrection Stone working? Where was Snape's body? Why couldn't he get a hold of himself?

What was this so fucking important to him, anyway?

Choking back an angry sob, Harry glared at the floor. The copious amounts of spilled blood had been smeared, proof that Snape _had_ died here and Harry had not been having a mad hallucination before. But there, on the ground—for a moment, Harry thought that they had dropped the locket Horcrux when they had come in here the day before. The early morning light filtered in through a dusty window and the necklace on the floor glinted golden. Harry picked it up. No, it wasn't Slytherin's locket. It was of a cheaper make, for one—more of a gift to a sweetheart than a House heirloom. And for another, the engraved initials were L.E.

Harry pried open the locket and it sprang open easily to reveal a portrait of a smiling red-haired woman with sparkling green eyes. "Mum," breathed Harry. In the other half of the locket was fastened a lock of auburn hair.

There was no doubt that this had been on Snape's person—Harry saw no reason for Voldemort or anyone else to be in possession of such a personal item. That his mother had given it to Snape was troubling in Harry's mind, but he shelved that worry away and absentmindedly fastened the locket around his neck. He would puzzle over it later. Snape's body had obviously been moved, and he needed to find it.

Seeing his mother's face had grounded him a bit. He couldn't keep running about on the school grounds, looking for a deceased professor. People would be waking up soon and wondering where he was. There were things to be done, and finding Snape would have to wait. Harry was used to making hard decisions by now and knew that no good would come out of acting impulsively. He needed Hermione's help, and Ron's, too. Well, he went back on that thought, maybe just Hermione. It would be easier to explain the situation to her. Ron would just think Harry had gone daft.

Walking out into the sunlight, the worries of the night before seemed silly now. Why had he been so concerned about Snape's motives? It hardly mattered; what was done was done. It was regrettable that Snape had died, but so had many others, all for Harry's sake, and Harry hadn't felt the need to question _their_ souls about why they had helped him. It was stress, Harry finally told himself. Stress and hubris had worked together to make him jealous of his mother because Snape loved her, not him.

Harry stopped, frowned, and shook his head to clear it.

Stress and hubris had worked together to make him jealous of his mother because Snape had _done it for her_, not him.

There. That was better.

Harry decided that the first thing he would do when he got back to Hogwarts was eat a large breakfast and then pour all of his energy into helping with recovery work around the castle until he was too tired to think such stupid things. Of _course_ Snape hadn't loved him! That was—that was _wrong_.

Wasn't it?

As Harry approached the secret entrance through which he had escaped from the castle the previous night, he pulled his Invisibility Cloak back on. It wouldn't do to let people know he had been out of the building. As he approached the Great Hall, from which wafted welcoming breakfast smells, he passed a scene that made him stop cold.

A handful of Aurors and Professor McGonagall had Severus Snape surrounded, all with their wands pointed towards the former Potions master.

"Potter told us the Dark Lord had killed you!" McGonagall was saying, her face drained of color. "Obviously that was some trick… Were the memories you left to clear your name a trick as well?"

"Minerva, please…" Snape said, his face pale for entirely different reasons.

"Don't 'Minerva, please' me!" cried McGonagall shrilly. "The Dark Lord is gone, Severus! If you still serve him…"

"Snape," said Harry plainly. Severus started and three of the five Aurors, nervous and on-guard, stunned him simultaneously. "_No!_" screamed Harry, still invisible. McGonagall frowned in the direction of his voice.

"He's back!" said one of the Aurors, clearly not meaning Harry. Another grabbed Severus from where he had collapsed after being stunned thrice. The one who had spoken pointed a wand in Snape's face. "Don't…don't do anything ill-advised!" he said nervously to the air. "Or we'll hex your precious servant into—"

"_Stupefy!_" shrieked another Auror, aiming in Harry's direction.

"You _idiots!_" said McGonagall, leaping in front of Harry and deflecting the spell. "It's Potter!" Harry only now realized that he had yet to take off his Invisibility Cloak. He did so. The Aurors all relaxed slightly. Some of them looked abashed. The one who had cast the Killing Curse looked as though she wished to be invisible herself. McGonagall paid them no mind, turning instead to examine Harry. "Are you quite all right, dear?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, thanks," said Harry. He walked past her to regard the fallen black-haired man. "W-What's going on?" he asked quietly. "I… I'm _sure_ I saw him—"

"That's what we thought, too," said McGonagall with a frown. "But yet here he appears to be."

"Polyjuice Potion, perhaps?" suggested one of the Aurors.

"It's possible," said McGonagall. "It would be easiest to know if the body was still where Harry last saw it—"

"It's not, Professor," said Harry. "I just went to see, and it's gone."

"Well," said McGonagall, frowning at Severus' prone body. "That makes sense, too. Anyone with half a brain would want to hide the real one—too obvious if there's a double. I suppose a _Levicorpus_ would take care of any smeared blood that might give investigators clues as to where the body was taken."

"Professor," said Harry, suddenly remembering. "There _was_ smeared blood. It was as if the body had been dragged out."

"Makes no sense," retorted McGonagall. "Why go through the trouble when _Levicorpus_ could move the body easily?"

"Unless the body was moved by none other than Snape himself," said the Auror who had suggested Polyjuice Potion in the first place.

"Snape is dead," McGonagall reminded him.

"So was Potter, from what we've heard," said the Auror. "And he's alive, isn't he?"

That made McGonagall pause. Harry felt irrational hope growing within him like a weed. What if... What if Snape really was--? He set his jaw and stopped the thought dead in his tracks. He needed to calm down and be reasonable. Snape coming back to life was severely improbable.

Harry had an idea. "Let's take him up to the infirmary and wait for an hour," he said. "If it's really Polyjuice Potion, it'll wear off by then and we'll know for sure." McGonagall opened her mouth to say that that simply gave the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape too much benefit of the doubt, but then shut it when she recognized the terrible light shining in Harry's eyes.

"Very good, Potter," she said at last. "We'll do that." Reluctant to see her student get hurt, she added, "Be on your guard, Harry. Don't… don't get your hopes up." The expression on Harry's face made her wish she hadn't said it.

While they moved Snape to the makeshift sickbay in the Slytherin commons room, Harry followed, hearing McGonagall's words echoing in his head. He felt stupid for having been caught hoping, been caught falling into some Death Eater's trap. He forced himself to think rationally. _It must be Polyjuice Potion. Severus Snape is really, truly dead. I saw it happen. I'm not going to think stupid things about him coming back to life. I'm __**not.**_ He remorselessly quashed the hope that had sprung up inside him until it was safely gone. Enough miracles had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Harry figured he had used up his supply of amazingly good luck for the next two lifetimes.

Regardless, after Harry had washed up and grabbed some toast and eggs from the breakfast spread, he went straight back up to the Slytherin commons to watch over Snape's doppelganger's prone form. He wanted to see for himself when the visage of the greasy-haired man morphed back into the perpetrator's face. Harry would wait until the pretender recovered from being Stunned, then he would punch him in the face for _daring_ to make believe he was Severus Snape and keep punching until he could no longer continue. And then he would _Crucio_ the bastard into next week, because _no one_ played with Harry Potter like that! His hands were shaking. It had been so terrible to see Snape living and breathing again only to realize that none of it could be true. For one painful moment, Harry thought he would cry and fumbled for his Invisibility Cloak so he could at least have some privacy. He was interrupted by a cool hand on his shoulder.

"Harry Potter?" whispered Narcissa Malfoy. Harry turned, confused. The tall blonde woman looked distinctly uncomfortable and fidgeted. "My Draco told me what you did… It was very…" she searched for a word "_Gryffindor_ of you. I'm not sure if my husband and son would approve, but the Malfoy family thanks you for your… valor." Such words were obviously not a part of her usual vocabulary. "We are in your debt, and if there's anything we can—" Narcissa suddenly let out a horrified gasp and Harry spun around, fully expecting Snape's face to have been replaced by another, hideous one. It hadn't been. "Is that _Severus?!" _hissed Narcissa, blue eyes wide in her pale face.

"No," said Harry bluntly. "It's not." Narcissa looked at him incredulously. "We figure someone's taken a Polyjuice Potion," said Harry. "We're waiting for it to wear off, so we can see who it is."

"Oh," said Narcissa. Then, "But he looks _terrible!_" It was true. The man's face was turning an awful shade of gray and beads of perspiration were collecting on his forehead. Harry involuntarily felt the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape's forehead. It was scorching hot. Harry snatched his hand away and pretended he hadn't noticed.

"Of course," he said. "He was stunned by three Aurors all at once." _Serves him right_, thought Harry bitterly.

Narcissa bit her lip. "Listen, Mr. Potter," she said finally. "I've seen this before. All of Nagini's victims look like this before they die."

That got Harry's attention. He paused, then said, "Wait, no. I've _seen_ what Nagini's victims look like before they die—I saw Snape when he died, alright? It's a whole lot of bleeding to death. None of this… this _fever_ stuff." Narcissa frowned at him. "He's not Snape, okay? I don't know if you're in on this stupid little scheme or whatever. Maybe you're trying to convince me it's Snape so I'll let my guard down and you can build up a new dark lord or whatever—"

"_Harry_," said Narcissa savagely, on the brink of tears, "listen to me. I don't care about dark lords or any of that other rubbish. All I care about right now are my friends and family. Severus was—_is_ one of my best friends. If there's any chance at all that he _isn't_ dead, and that's actually him on the cot, then I want him to be taken care of!" She started to cry in that silent, awful way, and Harry considered joining her, then decided against it. He wished he didn't understand how she felt, but he did all too well.

"But… that isn't what Nagini's victims look like," he protested feebly.

"It is if you staunch the bleeding and let the venom take effect instead," said Narcissa quietly. Harry swallowed and looked back at the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape.

_Think about it, Harry_, said the voice in his head, _if he really is Snape, and he's poisoned and may die for real…_

Harry may have been used to making hard decisions, but it didn't mean he liked to make them. He took a breath, held it, let it out. Then he said, in a clear, loud voice, "Kreacher!"

The House-elf appeared before him and fell immediately to kissing the hem of Narcissa's robes with cries of "Miss Cissy!" Narcissa smiled and petted the head of her old servant.

"Kreacher," said Harry wearily. "I need you to find me a bezoar as quickly as you can, please." The House-elf immediately rose to his feet and bowed to Harry. "And thanks for the sandwiches," added Harry. "They were great."

Kreacher beamed and bowed low. "Master Harry is too kind," said the House-elf. "Kreacher will find what Master Harry requires." With one last endearing look at Narcissa, Kreacher vanished to do Harry's bidding.

"Thank you, Harry," said Narcissa after the House-elf had gone. Harry wanted to say that he had done it as much for himself as he had done it for her, but held his tongue.

Narcissa and Harry talked quietly amongst themselves while they waited for Kreacher to return. Narcissa insisted that Harry request something of the Malfoy family; favors were not something a proud pureblood family liked to owe. Harry surprised her by asking her to tell him about Severus' past. What were his years at school like? Was he really unhappy all the time? What friends did he have other than Lily?

So absorbed was he in Narcissa's stories that when the latter commented that Kreacher was taking a while, Harry absentmindedly glanced at his watch and said "Yeah, he's been gone for over an hour." The full meaning of the words struck them a moment later and they both spun to examine the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape. The man looked more ill by the second, but there was no doubt about it.

"Oh my god," breathed Narcissa while Harry stared, his heart in his mouth. "It really is him."

--

NOTE: I refer to Severus as "the Potions master" even though he ceased to be such since the sixth book came out for two reasons: 1) Potter Puppet Pals, and 2) "Potions master" is sexier.

--

AN: Right. Apologies for the slow pacing, as some of you have commented on that. I have a tendency to explore emotions and motives because that's just my writing style. I'm sorry if you guys want more cool things to happen faster, but you'll need to suffer the slowness for a bit longer. It could be worse! I once wrote a story that covered three days in TEN CHAPTERS.

See! I'm improving!

:: beams ::

I promise Severus will be awake for most of the next chapter. P-R-O-M-I-S-E.

Thank you so much for your reviews! They keep the muses chugging!

CHUG!


End file.
